The Empty Howl of a "Lone Wolf" [The Zero Dot Podcast #17]

is the thing, right?

It's like we're, like the idea of like the lone wolf as a romanticized figure is so
fucking funny because wolves are in packs.

Like that's the point of wolves.

Like they're a group.

There can be a leader of a wolf who's like, I'm the coach of the wolves.

They probably don't say that.

They probably say like, ah-roo.

But they still like go with the other wolves.

It's a whole thing.

Sidebar, in Minnesota, there are wolf sanctuaries and you can see wolves do stuff and it's
amazing.

I just need to quickly acknowledge that.

It's really cool.

Do it if you get the chance.

But.

Hyperindependence is viewed as a strength because we've been coached to do it.

I'll let you guess why, but I'll, I'll hint at a couple of things.

One, it prevents people from having to feel their feelings.

They don't get, they don't have to be vulnerable.

So it's a little more of that.

And two, these people are easy to manipulate

All right, folks, welcome back to the Zero Dot podcast.

I'm Sam, this is John, this is Daniel, and gentlemen, another seven consecutive days have
passed.

are now at the time of which we say it has been a week, hasn't it?

Not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, but seven consecutive days.

Not eight, that'd be too many.

Not nine, I'm gonna quit.

There's a lot more numbers.

But yeah, no, it's the seven of them.

I hope it's been good.

I hope you've had a lovely time.

I hope this feels better than the previous week.

I hope that happens for the rest of your life.

It probably won't, but it'd be really cool if it did.

be really cool.

Yeah, we've never recorded a session like right after another session and skipped that
seven day week.

We're always honest about that every single time.

I would like to address the following conundrum.

So I'm a person with a vocabulary that I've previously thought was fairly, fairly okay.

Like I knew several different words and I've used them at various lugubrious times.

And I've found that I had internalized wizened as a different word than it is.

Wizened straight up has whys in the word.

And if you are fucking around,

You can use it in a sentence with other adjectives and it might mean it might fit.

But wizened means old.

It doesn't mean wise and wiser.

And that's a problem for me.

And I don't like that.

does mean old.

Are we afraid of getting old, gentlemen?

Nah, you kind of like, so here's the deal.

Here's the thing in therapy town.

It's very reliable.

You have client, clients amazing clients like 22, 24, 25, right around that window.

They're like, so I'm going to die.

Uh, I've realized that one thing in my life isn't constantly getting better.

It might be like, now my knee is doing a thing or like your first little gray hair pops up
or something.

And it's like, this is a very bad thing.

And then if you handle that, which really is just like, talk about it, your shit.

Eventually you're just like, yeah.

Yeah.

No, getting old is sick.

I'm sure there's a recursion point.

Fucking thing.

So my grandma is the centurion, we recall her.

She's over 100 years old.

What a beast.

Shout out to Grandma Kay.

um But she was talking to my mom about aging a while ago, and she was like, you know what,
Sue, my mom's name is Sue, every decade's better than the last.

I was like, that's fucking cool, Grandma, you're fucking cool.

And it was her 100th birthday a while ago.

and I was there and I was kinda like hoping to catch some of that grandma magic, grmagic
for short, and I asked her the same question.

No, no, no, that would be called gr-margic, which is worse.

It doesn't even sound fun, but I asked her, I kinda said, I'm like, hey, grandma, what
would you say is the best decade?

And she was like, well, after 90, it's all bad.

And I was like, oh, this has lost the whimsical charm of last time.

Ah, shit.

which is probably just like her spitting facts and that like, it's harder to do things.

She's still like able-bodied, lives in her own home, like grandma's a fucking tank.

And if she heard me swearing so much, I think she would be a little bit less thrilled, but
like grandma's amazing.

She is genuinely truly incredible person.

But no, like the theory was prior to the a hundred years, she was like, no, like things
just kind of keep getting better.

I think as long as you have your mental faculties, like life's pretty cool.

I would a hundred percent tell you that 20 something me would be afraid to be in his
thirties and 30 something me is like, no, they're like the best so far.

It's fucking incredible.

I've been trying my hardest whenever I have a birthday, rather than doing the thing of
like, haha, or I'm not going to count this one, I'm just going to stay this age or like,

know, another year, like, I'm getting older, I'm getting up there.

No.

Instead, I am taking to being grateful and thankful and very happy and honoured that I get
to live another year.

And it's been really good for my mental health.

Because even joking about that stuff, there's a little bit of truth in there when people
are just like, haha, I'm so old.

And it's like, you're joking, you...

So I've been kind of trying to retrain my brain to think of it as just like, hell yes, I
survived another year.

Go me.

That's awesome.

And I get to be around more and do more good stuff and help more people and help myself
and be a better person.

And it gives me more time before I do leave to leave it better than I found it.

I'm so happy about that.

I'm so happy about that.

that's great.

I often think of our 30s in the same way that I think John and I had the same experience.

Maybe Daniel had a different one.

You're told in middle school and high school, oh, we're going to pound you to the ground
because you're not being prepared for the real world.

You get to the real world, which in this metaphor is your 30s.

Like, oh, this is fine.

This is cool.

This ain't bad.

We like this.

What were you so scared of?

Like, this is good.

I vibe with this.

It was the other stuff that was hard.

This is not bad.

the fear of like, you're meant to have it all figured out by now.

If you don't have things all figured out, forget that.

I'm still figuring things out.

I figured new things out every single day.

And you should.

If you've got everything figured out perfectly by the time that you're 30.

Hmm, that's kind of weird.

I'm not sure about that.

No, no, the idea of having it figured out by your 30s is very much harkening back to that.

Like we can close the patent office, everything's good, we did it all, which was set in
what, like 18 fucking 26 or some shit.

Like it was a long time ago, prior to.

like a 96 year patent on their stuff, yeah.

Yeah, but yeah, I know that's I feel like so my quick take on aging is like if you still
have this like you can keep growing You'll like yourself more.

You'll know more shit You are better in every way except admittedly physically some things
like injuries heal different heads up on that 120 somethings like you're gonna get hurt

and he's just kind of there for a while but like other than that The best thing which is
also foreshadowing for the show today is You will make friends better in your 30s.

It's so much.

It's so much better

Holy fuck, it's a better process.

Would recommend, am recommending.

the fear is like the existential fear of like do I belong do I belong no I probably belong
let me find out hey what's your thing hey is that like my thing hey I'll let me connected

to my thing and there's like that innocence factor that's so nice

This is one of the harder things about the human experience, especially I suspect for the
younger generation, no science to back that up.

So feel free for me to like, you're fucking wrong.

But I think the youngest generations right now have grown up with a computer that you can
ask how to do things, which has made them on one hand, incredibly efficacious.

They forget being like, I don't know how to do this.

I'll just figure it out.

It's actually like, they're amazing at that.

But it also has led to the notion that there's a way to do things that you should do,
which is often true.

Like for instance, if you want to open a banana, I'm told it is best to open from not the
stem, but the other side.

That's just what you're supposed to do.

Which is nice when there's a thing that's correct, but insofar as living a human life, the
diversity of participants and experiences and things is such that like there is no right

way to do anything.

And in theory, in the middle of your thirties or later, you'll start to be like, shit,
yeah, doesn't matter what I do.

Like it's kind of my own thing.

Whereas in your 20s, there's a little bit of built-in rat raciness because you're supposed
to do so much shit still.

I remember distinctly, wherever I was sitting, when I had the thought, I don't think I go
to clubs enough.

What a fucking, what a silly thought.

Because then I did it more and I was like, this is not rewarding.

I don't want to keep doing this.

But I was told that I should buy, I don't know, like I had inferred that from somewhere
and it turns out to be a false.

But you're right, the latest generation, they're looking for instructions for everything.

They're really good at finding instructions.

They're good at listening to instructions.

And unfortunately they've been capitalized on and preyed upon because people know that and
they do the whole.

Here's your solutions to things.

One of things that John and I and Daniel talk about is that some of this shit will offer
you guidance, but it's hard shit.

It's hard shit.

And I can guide you, but you gotta take the path on your own.

Yep, that heads up once again, that's gonna be a big today thing.

um I'm really excited to talk about this stuff with you, but it's not like it's just a
strap it, like turn it, move it, fix it.

It's now your, like now you gotta work at it.

Which, know, to kind of wrap up like, you know, the 30s-y thing, the 20s-y thing, like, if
you focus on helping yourself see where you're at as like a curious thing or a learning

thing, or also I forget which one of these.

fine gentleman said it earlier, but it was Daniel.

But it was like coming from a gratitude lens.

Like if you fucking hate this podcast and you never wanna hear it again, cool, here's what
you're do.

You're gonna listen to the next 10 seconds, fucking turn it off and never come back again.

Reality is subjective, use gratitude to make it better for yourself.

There you go.

That's the best fucking tip in the bag.

That's it, done.

Bye.

thing.

have to listen to us ever again.

But it is so powerful.

It's so fucking good.

I'll never stop being excited to talk about that.

And to uncult it.

There's a lot of like weird cult-y shit around gratitude and invalidating your problems
that I do not want to do.

I mean, I do want to talk about it from like a that's bad perspective, but.

Yeah.

Well, before we get into the main topic for the day, I'd like to hear some good news.

If you have any good.

and I do.

It's been a week, you know, not one of the worst weeks, but you know, I could use some
cheering up.

I maybe have started picking slightly spicier good pieces of news because I'm a rebel.

Last week we talked about spiciness and whoo, it got spicy.

We talked about rectal spiciness, spiciness from the mouth.

What kind of spicy we talking about here, John?

I'm talking about spicy and that there are vague political undertones to talk about, but
also I don't care.

And that I think the thing is good.

So maybe you're listening to this on a phone.

Perhaps you're watching it upon a computer.

Perhaps a car is playing the sounds.

And the fun thing about all these things is they're powered by stuff.

None of those things just were like, I'm sentient and choose to do this.

And also sentient things like made of carbon still need fuel and power.

And my God, we lost Sam.

He's back.

um

One of the things that's pretty cool is there's all kinds of sources of power.

You know, you can like light a thing on fire.

You can like burn a thing.

You can also like combust a thing.

And occasionally a lot of flames.

Yeah, I know it's very

and like converting things into power, is that what you're talking about?

Okay, gotcha.

And yeah, there's other ways as well.

One of those ways that's kind of cool comes courtesy of the ocean, which is wind.

Ocean and wind, very related if you don't know about these things.

Moon also tied to this equation.

But it's true.

I feel like I heard that the moon leaving us was one of the soonest natural catastrophes
that would end the world.

It's still like incredibly far away, but like no moon, no tide, no, yeah, you were.

we're dead, actually worse, huge tide and then we're dead.

But for now, while we're rocking a moon and tides and there's wind, there's this cool
thing, sidebar, I am not from Minnesota natively, I was born in Illinois.

And once upon a time, I was driving out to a movie theater, which was kind of like in the
edge of the countryside and my friends and I were like heading out there and we

collectively just kind of like lost our shit because it's the dead of night.

and looking out into the endless cornfield.

Sidebar, if you're ever in Illinois, like the center of Illinois, you can see for fucking
40 miles.

It's so flat, you can just see forever.

But we looked out and all we could see was just a sea of floating red lights blinking in
unison about 300 feet in there.

thwom, thwom.

I was like, so the aliens are here, this is it, bye guys.

But what was happening, unbeknownst to me, since I didn't go out to that part of town,
they had put up a ton of these

gigantic propeller-y things.

They have a better name, wind turbines.

And it lets the wind propel, and then there's a little stick, and it goes, oh, I'm gonna
harness that energy.

I'm gonna distribute the energy.

How great is that?

And where we have them is in the giant cornfields of Illinois, which fun fact, you can
just like leave the cornfields and just like put a stick in them.

It's kind of convenient.

But out on the East Coast, they, many good things about the East Coast.

I heard the seafood's good.

They have inferior football teams at present, but it's not their fault.

But they have not as much land to do stuff with, because we started building cities there
first.

So in the Midwest and frankly, the West dish, like your Wyoming's Montana's all kinds of
land.

But if I'm like, Hey, let's go start a wind farm in New York.

Maybe like upstate, I don't know, but like it's probably not, like there's just not a lot
of space.

But then you just keep going East a little bit, you'll find your boots are getting wet and
you keep going East a little bit.

And now you're either swimming or drowned.

But this thing's called the ocean.

It's this big, sporky guy between us and Daniel.

And what you can do, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you when you guys say mind the gap, I
assume you mean like the fucking thousands of miles of ocean, which is just, a large gap.

But you can stick a wind turbine in the ocean and just sploot that energy back to the land
and it's really great.

But if you recall,

I mentioned burning things and the proprietors of burning things enterprises are like, we
only want you to burn things?

No more wind stuff.

And I'm sure they want that because they're very protective of the wind and don't want it
to collide with a fan and feel uncomfortable because what other reason could there be?

What other non-sinister hoarding money growing reason could there possibly be?

But they said, hey, we're gonna interrupt what's happening, which is a company called
Sunrise Wind and a few other things.

The Department of the Interior, so hence the political undertones.

ordered that they would stop five offshore wind projects along America's eastern seaboard.

And then a judge, uh Royce C.

Lamberth, hell of a judge name, Royce C.

Lamberth, isn't that strong?

Isn't that powerful?

I just love that.

uh It was like, hey, you guys, your order to stop this from happening is costing the
company who is building these things that we've already paid $2.5 million a day.

Wow, that's smidge.

so we're gonna just get back to it.

ah So they overrode this order that was totally in no way related to companies that want
you to burn things exclusively for their money and income for now clean energy that's

gonna get put in along the Eastern seaboard so more people can have more affordable power.

I'm sure somehow that's bad according to someone, but it's not me.

I think it's great.

I like when things regulate things in a way that is favorable to the people.

I don't know why I like a government for the people, I'm pretty into the idea, but it
sounds really good.

if the government should be for anything, it should be for people,

Well, I was, have you considered like shareholders?

I was just thinking maybe they're, could, thank you.

bad for the shareholders, actually.

I do feel bad.

They are so marginalized and oppressed.

It's terrible.

and puny.

uh

Thank you so much, John.

You know, this entire time I thought if I just was in the game as long as I could and made
a difference for my community, that would be enough.

But you know what?

Those poor shareholders, if they don't see year over year growth every single quarter,
every single year, what will happen?

Well, the other thing is like, if these wind farms are bad and people don't want them, per
the rules of American capitalism, they will fail.

So let's let them try and fail instead of being what's called a baby back bitch and then
trying to prevent them from even having a chance because you're afraid of the thing you

claim to support.

Whoops, got a little political.

I'm done hiding from that for the record.

I feel like can't.

think we're under laissez faire economics, but we actually are not under laissez faire.

In fact, we have a lot of hands on the lever pushing for a certain party, not party, just
group of people that make a lot of money off of that stuff.

But then they have the ostentatiousness to say, it's laissez faire economics.

Just let it what will be.

How many times have you had to been bailed out because something catastrophically failed?

The real estate market, the airline market.

Maybe the real estate market again?

have no idea.

Maybe Bitcoin's gonna crash?

I'm just saying.

my basketball team is gonna play Sam's basketball team and it's gonna be totally fair.

I did hire all the refs, uh but they're very good refs and I just brought them on.

I'm sure they won't be in any way impartial.

I mean, impartial, I mean, they will.

I did, I did.

Royds, you gotta.

not do those things, but it's laissez faire, laissez faire.

It's true, you could have bought all the roids.

Just saying.

No.

Royce not roids.

Royce not roids, loud and proud.

No, I, uh, shout out to Judge Lamberth and shout out to doing things in a fair way and
shout out to like protecting the fucking environment.

I don't know why I just like the environment so much.

It's like we live here.

Yeah, think, so like to reiterate, like obviously there's little sassy pants going on over
here, but it's not about like being like, these people are bad, these people are bad.

It's about being like agendas that hurt people are bad.

Agendas that help a very small group of people and hurt other people are bad.

If, yeah, if you are the person who benefits and other people will hurt, you should think
about that.

And I shouldn't have to fucking tell you this.

And we'll talk about why that's a thing another time.

um We already have as well.

It's called empathy.

the path of least resistance.

If we make the system in place that the path of least resistance is the most attractive
and that harms people, that's my problem.

It's the system I have.

it's that.

It's that.

Well, that is good news, John.

I'm so thankful you brought up my spirits.

I always fight for the good old environment.

I'm happier about it.

I'm happier just in general.

I'm grateful.

I thought about skipping this episode, but you brought that on and now I'm pretty darn
good.

I'm so glad.

Can we skip the other part, the part where I talk about things aren't so great?

Can we just skip that?

Can we just like not talk about that?

Let's check in with Daniel and see if he's got notes.

No, I actually have something.

I'm just, I'm asking.

Court of opinion.

Yeah.

the bad stuff because it's important to talk about and what's even better is we get to
find ways to make it better.

We do, we do.

Otherwise it's just screaming into the void.

Alright folks, so we're not a gaming podcast per se, but we have gaming tangentials.

We are gamers here.

We've talked about gaming in the past.

If you recall, gentlemen, I talked about a study that came out across the pond on Daniel's
side of the fence from a marketing firm that said that remakes are here to stay.

Remember video game remakes?

They're coming in full force.

Every company is going to invest in them.

But if you paid attention to the news, you might have uncovered, you might have seen

That one very, well, we thought it was gonna be a prolific remake, didn't quite make the
cut.

And of course, what I'm talking about here is a remake that a lot of people were looking
forward to for reasons.

I'm only sharing because this is where it is.

I'm not an advocate for x.com, but this is where they shared the message.

The Prince of Persia Sands of Time remake was ultimately canceled by good old Ubisoft.

Now, cancellations are a thing, John and Daniel.

I'm gonna read verbatim exactly what they said because this is important.

To the Prince of Persia community, we wanna share this with you directly.

We've made the difficult decision to stop development on Prince of Persia, The Sands of
Time remake.

We know this is deeply disappointing.

The game carries enormous meaning for fans and for the teams who worked on it.

While the project had real potential,

Hmm.

We weren't able to reach the level of quality you deserve and continuing would be have
required a more time and investment than we have we could responsibly commit Okay, and we

didn't want to release something that fell short of what the sands of time represents This
is Ubisoft.

That's what they're That they've had no problem releasing other things to a certain amount
of quality that I'll let you be the judge of but this is their logic

The of Persia as a universe and a legacy continues to matter deeply to us and this
decision does not mean we're stepping away from the franchise.

Okay.

Thank you for your passion, patience and love for Prince of Persia, the Prince of Persia
team.

Now, I wanna point our eyes to a few things.

If you go to their social media account, if it's still there, literally every single
announcement they've ever made has been an update about this remake and from the dev team

and what's going on with this particular remake.

uh

Literally just talking about this remake and then suddenly they cancel this remake now.

Why am I talking about this?

Well, it's kind of funny I think we called it out that you know what remakes are being
seen as a cash cow and they should just be easy money Yet it would seem in this particular

case we thought Ubisoft thought it was not gonna be easy money and this was the cost for
it but it gets even worse because This wasn't just a remake John and Daniel that was just

like in development quote-unquote hell No, this had been in the pipeline almost gone
through all the different phases of development

Apparently there was a leak of the game and it looked overall almost finished.

And not to say anything more, but one particular individual voiced their concerns having
spent three years voice acting the game.

There we go.

Iman Hayaz.

She worked on this game for over three years of her entire life.

Her voice lines, she gave her entire life to this project and now it's just canned, it's
gone.

It's just kaput.

It just does not exist at all.

On top of that, our good old friend Jordan Mechner, who is the creator of Prince of Persia
and worked on The Sands of Time, as well as the screenplay to The Sands of Time Hollywood

film that, you know, maybe we shouldn't talk about that one, but he did work on that
particular project.

He had some words to say about this and how...

deeply disheartened he was about this.

uh The big negative about this, John and Daniel, is this.

There's a lot of young creative people that they spent a considerable amount of time of
their lives on this project.

They were hoping to put this on the resume.

Getting something like this on the resume puts them on the map and makes them marketable,
and now they have nothing to show for it.

If there's anything in the productive world, it's about what have you shipped, what have
you done, what have you done lately, and now three years is completely gone.

Now, why am I sharing this?

Am I just saying this so we can say this is bad?

We should just point the fingers at Ubisoft?

No.

I'm saying this because I am asking our people that are listening to our podcast, and I'm
saying to anyone else that's listening or people that don't want to listen prior to,

there's a way to solve this.

buy shittier games and enjoy them.

And by buy shittier games, I'm not saying blow your entire budget on it.

I'm saying you see a Steam sale, something pops up, it's $3.99, buy that shitty game.

It doesn't have to be the most amazing and incredible game because it seems that in this
case, Ubisoft put this particular remake on a particular pedestal that had to satisfy a

particular requirement.

um And for that supposed reason, and that's their reasoning, right?

That's what they're saying.

That's why they shelved the project.

Now we are smarter than that.

We know that there's far more nefarious mechanizations for that.

We know for a fact that they probably were under financially for other projects that had
nothing to do with Prince of Persia and they just had to cut their losses.

Plus it's a really great tax break if they can cut this off significantly.

That's me and my personal opinion.

I don't know that for a fact, but what we can always do is show developers, hey,

to let projects like this not die for as long as they do, we are willing to spend money on
the dumb, stupid projects.

I hate it when a studio shuts down a game like this, tries to pin it on quote unquote
costs, tries to pin it on the game not satisfying a certain level of quality.

When we as gamers, you know what, we just want to spend our...

Couple uh of dollars that we have on some fun and we can show them that we're not always
gonna buy the AAA release every single time.

I'm curious to hear John's thoughts, but I'll just put my heart on my sleeve for just a
moment.

Prince of Persia Sands Time is one of my favorite games of all time.

One of my favorites, it's absolutely phenomenal.

I was convinced this remake was gonna be no good.

Here's the thing, I still wish it came out, because then all these wonderfully hardworking
people would have seen the fruits of their labor, and I probably would have picked it up

probably on a sale, just to see how it is.

and I would not have felt like it attacked my vision of what Sands of Time would have
been, it would just been its own thing.

So again, Ubisoft's logic of like, oh, it wouldn't measure up to our standards, that's
actually a big giant middle finger to all the people that worked on that game, as if to

imply they didn't do their job right.

Because I think they probably did, they did exactly the best they possibly could have.

Man, this thing that you were so proud of that you spent three years voice acting for.

We don't want to give you a subpar product.

We're so sorry.

We don't want to give you this slop that someone poured their heart and soul into.

uh

I have very little to say except the idea of not making it to Ubisoft's standards.

I know.

Like, my jumping standards are one inch off the ground.

Like, have you played the latest insert Ubisoft game here?

They're not putting out the best and brightest because they're a form-following company
that does what's safe.

Cause they're cowards who want money.

So...

Which also doesn't fucking work!

Like, it does sometimes.

Sometimes you make madden and you just get infinite money.

I don't want to come across as a hypocrite here.

There have been a few Ubisoft games I've really enjoyed, knowing they are very just
whatever.

I've done the gamer crunch on them.

I obsessed over Far Cry 3.

Blood Dragon's one of the best.

I don't care if that's an asset flip.

um There have been a couple Ubisoft titles, but I mean, you're right.

mean, to say it's about quality, like dude.

We knew what game you were gonna make.

You were gonna make a game where you held one button and you just ran forward the entire
time.

That's the game you've been making for the past 20 years.

So again, I'm not bringing this up just to get mad.

If you feel impassioned by this, you might feel like there's nothing you can do.

And sure, if you want to boycott Ubisoft, can.

I'm not gonna suggest you do that.

But you can do.

Feel free in whatever way you can, the spoons that you have, play shitty games to show
devs and publishers that you don't need the umpteenth level of whatever to throw a couple

dollars that way to enjoy something.

Cause I think that's what we all can do.

We can all enjoy something regardless of that.

I would add so much more to that, but I'm not going to, because I'm sure that's going to
clear up in some other show.

I have so much to say and I only wish I had an outlet for all of these things that I want
to say somebody should make that thing

And they should.

well, that was my thing.

Things are all good.

I think the show can be wrapped up.

We're done.

I'm sure there's no larger encompassing topic that John wants to talk about that we're
gonna talk about, right, Daniel?

We're gonna cut them off right here.

We're done with this.

We're just.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is the end.

uh

a fetish and my fetish is I really like a good seg.

Like if we're talking and you go sh-la-bloop into the next topic, you have to have the
fluidity of it.

Look how good that looks.

Look how good that looks, 4K.

But like, we're like here and now we're here and I'm just like, so narratively satisfying.

What a smooth flow.

What an orator.

What a storyteller.

In complete contrast to that, here's the topic we're gonna talk about.

because I don't, I can't transition from Ubisoft to this.

I might try.

No.

There's one thread and it's anger, but we'll deal with that.

off, I have a fetish.

Wild way to start a sentence.

Also, that fetish is a fluid fetish, in fact.

Very nice.

Awesome.

Love that for you.

Love that for you.

fetish.

If you don't play a game with yourself yet where you say things as a sound check, start
doing it, you're gonna have a better life.

Like just if anything feels crispy on the tongue, just fucking run that shit back and be
like, a fluid fetish.

Try it at home.

Try it right now.

If you did, you're my new best friend.

If you didn't, I still think you're great, it's fine.

Whoa, isn't that weird?

I was just talking.

It was me, I was talking.

Now I'm interrupting myself.

You don't get to do that very often.

Why would I do that?

Why would I disrupt this crafted content our editor has so carefully put together that we
put a basic level of effort into?

It's because I want to tell you what I need.

And what I need is help.

We love doing this show.

We're happy to do it out of the goodness of our hearts.

But if you like this show and want to get more of it, we would encourage you to scoot over
to our Patreon for the tune of 399.

You can join a special club, you get private access to our stuff early.

You can give us questions that we will answer early and we will also love you forever and
say your name at the end of the episode.

And if you don't, you're probably still great, but you know, if you got a few bucks to
spare, we'd appreciate it.

Bye, back to me.

John Lloyd to you, not back to John, to me.

Speaking of our Patreon, I want to give a quick shout out to the people who pay us money
on there.

Isn't that fancy?

Isn't that nice?

We have God of Grunts, we have Aid, we have JP, we have William Kirk.

I almost said Samuel Kirk.

I almost said you, Sam, who I'm speaking to.

visage to with each other.

Some say we do.

Mmm.

And not to forget, dear friend Robert Restant.

Thank you, everyone.

Your support does mean a lot to us.

And if you would also like to mean a lot to us, then you can also support us and pay us a
little bit of money.

Back to the podcast.

So I wanna talk about seeing as how you so quickly became my new best friend.

the relationships that men have.

That's a sake, was it good?

It was more like, viewers, did a bad, it was a bad hand gesture.

You won't appreciate it.

Viewers, listeners, I'm frazzled.

I don't like Ubisoft very much.

So we have two topics.

Today, my notes, my notes today say two for, two for, I got two for one special for you
today.

Topic the first.

twofer, is it secretly a threefer?

pretty bad at math but I don't think this makes sense to me.

Maybe.

Is that how it works?

Do you go like, like two for, three for, four for, five for?

forfer.

Forfer, I knew it, that's why I said it.

Forfer.

Fix the forfer, friend.

So as I was saying, um, the topics for today include loneliness, epidemic in men.

If you don't say that, it sounds so fucking weird.

One topic is loneliness, epidemic in men.

No, it's the loneliness of the day.

Good men.

I want to talk about that.

And I also want to talk about relationships and the tagline of that half put it on.

We're going to put it on in big shiny letters.

So editor, Daniel, see, this is like the miscreant energy that I enjoy.

So big shiny letters arcing around my head.

I'm picturing a firework or two, maybe like a unicorn horn, something like that.

Could be fun.

And it'll say,

I was gonna do a thing, don't wanna do anymore, it's too much work.

But ah no relationship is better than a bad relationship.

And obviously, if you're a clever Carl, you've been able to draw the parallel there
because if you're lonely and you're like, need to get a relationship of some sort, I'll

just have this one, it's really bad, but I gotta have it because it's the one that I have.

And that's the tying thread there.

So before I get into my splendors of knowledge, I would ask these fine gentlemen if they
have any objections or thoughts or queries.

Or four for four.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Good.

Keep it that way.

So, I would start by talking about men.

So there's a YouTube channel that I enjoy.

It's some more news.

They're pretty fun.

And there was one very kind of playfully clickbaity title.

was like, men, are you okay?

And then the answer was like, no.

And I say that not in way like, are bad, because I didn't even notice, but I am a man on a
show with two other men.

So we're quite manly around this joint.

we would never have made that assumption, so we thank you for identifying as such, so we
know that's the way it is.

to do it.

No, I enjoy being a man.

It's pretty great.

There's a lot of cool perks.

Some of them include like, I don't know, just like being physically big.

can do a thing.

I'm tall and having a beard is pretty fun.

You well, you can't wear a cape.

I think there's not, it's not everybody who gets to do all the perks, but there's, there's
a lot of things.

There's obviously some societal perks and I feel like it would be reductivist to get into
that, but like they're pretty fucking obvious and numerous, but I do want to draw

attention to like some of the struggles men face and frankly, how we can help them.

because we need some help in a country way in a world way, uh, I kind of get into that so
Talking about men as a biological creature because a lot of this shit gets conflated with

things that have been assigned via gender roles over time One of those things is that men
have like a weird like fighty thing.

This is real I was in a psychology course on evolutionary psych once and they started the
class and dr frank mcandrew said something like just so you know

All of the men in this classroom have sized each other up and decided who would win in a
fight.

And a lot of the women in the class were like, that's not real.

And they're like, no, we did.

And it's not like a scary thing, like I'm going to fucking kill Tim and it's just like,
that's how your brain works.

There is a level of just like kind of aggression built into the package.

Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Some of my clients are trans and they have started taking testosterone under the care of a
prescriber.

It's been a really cool thing to see.

see a lot of great joy there, but there are some really fun and adorable things along the
way where they'll be like, John, I am so horny.

all the time.

I can't, this is insane.

And it's like, yeah, I know that's part of the package.

And like, there's just a bunch of like little biochemical things.

um And like, I don't know, these things I think are funteresting, but what I really want
to do is separate out some of the stuff that we've been bred to do, that we've been taught

and culturally like built in to do, that's made men kind of weird.

So one of the things that I've talked about right out of the gate ties to our past show
from last week, is there is a fear.

of vulnerability, which is kind of oxymoronic if you hang out with it for too long.

So I don't think about it too long, but there's this idea of like, yeah, you just don't
want to be a panda.

I really enjoy the way that most of my diet isn't bamboo.

I would hate to mess that up.

Panda fact checkers, please tell me if that's not what pandas mostly eat, but I'm pretty
sure that's a thing.

um But this idea of like, if I am vulnerable, I will be like attacked.

If I show that I am feeling a sad feeling, it will be addressed in an unkind way.

If you are an American man and you've played some sort of sports, I would bet a lot of
money you've had some sort of coach or teammate tell you to fucking toughen up in some

capacity.

It has happened to me.

It has been said to me by people who love me and care about me, but there's a level of
like fucking shut it, Merrick, get back on the fucking ice or whatever else.

And it's built in as a strong thing, like be tough, be strong.

And we get coached to do this.

So what happens is in the gentler version, I, Johnny Sportsman, am playing the sport with
my friend Daniel and Sam.

And I go, you guys, we got fucking killed out there.

That felt really bad.

I think I'm not doing very good and I feel kind of sad.

And then Daniel, alpha male dick that he is, like, well, that's cause you're fucking
shitty at the sport, you piece of garbage.

And Sam, also alpha male dick that he is, like, yeah, you're holding us back and you're
weak.

And my little brain, well, it's true.

I was weak and I failed.

I did say those things.

and I made the mistake of being vulnerable and telling you guys I had a feeling.

So you correctly, you know, put me back into submission.

And that is what it is when it's done gently is like signaling of like, don't be
vulnerable here.

This isn't a safe place, which among men is actually occasionally a kindness because it's
much better than the next guy actually coming at you and being like, you're the fucking

problem, which feels very bad, but it coaches you not to be vulnerable.

Another little kind of preview that we're talking about soon.

There's a kind of culturalization about like,

It's okay to be vulnerable in a few specific spots.

One, person dies.

Two, your dog.

Three, your significant other.

That's kind of it.

If you ever watched a movie and you feel you're about to cry and then you're like, don't
do it, that's an interesting moment because that movie was likely made to give you that

emotion and there's a piece of you that's resisting it.

Biologically, your body would benefit from doing it.

You never are about to cry because it's bad for you.

Like that's not a thing.

Your body's trying to release some stuff.

But what we've learned is it's the same.

It's the same.

Don't breathe, don't poop, don't sneeze, don't blink.

It's all the fucking same.

It's a biological process.

But we get told vulnerability is weak, which is fucking sidebar, and I can't do enough
with this, like vulnerability is strong.

It is very easy to say nothing.

It is very hard to say this is my pain.

If you disagree with me on that, feel free to tell me.

You, you're wrong.

across the entire globe are those that are willing to be vulnerable and honest.

And believe it or not, even though it feels like you're doing something that comes across
as weak, everyone else goes, my gosh, that guy is such a strong person.

That person is such a strong person for saying those things.

Yeah, continue.

oh no, totally.

I would build right off of that.

once again, I'm a therapist, I'm a day job and I've had a lot of, I don't know, you'd have
to pay to know more about that.

That's a different channel.

But I've had a lot of clients and by a lot, I mean like five to seven ish who have been
coaches at a level of significance.

Like they're pretty good at it.

And there's often a piece of like frustration with the team because of the things I'm
talking about right now.

And the coaches and I, the coaches who are my clients, will talk about ways that they can
do what they want to do while also supporting their team.

And there's a scariness, especially when you're coaching teenagers, to being vulnerable.

Because if you are, they're going to turn on you and be like, you're weak and you don't
actually know what you're doing.

Now, of course, that's fucking insane.

And what happens when it actually happens, without fail, in my career, by the way, is that
they go out of their way to tell you overtly that they respect you.

Like it makes a difference.

There's a thing with teenagers that we can talk about now and forever and every time
forever, but like your brain kind of clicks right around 12, 13 is to start valuing

status.

As a real adult TM who's older than teenagers, you inherently have more status and more
validity.

And if you, I don't know, if you go and you're like, oh teenagers, why aren't we good?

That's not the same thing as being vulnerable.

If you go in there and you're like, you guys, I can tell that we're not putting our best
effort out there and we're fucking around during practice and it's making me disappointed.

I had higher hopes for you than this and I want to.

You can be stern about it too, but you can just show some vulnerability.

It makes a difference.

But this is point one of four.

Ansari impression right there, that was pretty good.

That's Aziz Ansari's John impression.

I'm fucking older than he is so he can just give that shit right back but ah The next one
is hyper independence men get coached to be hyper independent sidebar.

This is not good This is very bad.

You do want to be self-sufficient in lots of ways because that's cool and it makes you
very capable Hyper independence means you're neglecting other members of your creature.

You're supposed to play on a team This is like a person being like I'm a good football
player.

I'll be the quarterback and the offensive line

That's dumb, you're gonna die.

that that's a it's pretty brutal it's called getting tackled and it's called being Tom
Brady and retiring twice yeah

yeah.

But this is the thing, right?

It's like we're, like the idea of like the lone wolf as a romanticized figure is so
fucking funny because wolves are in packs.

Like that's the point of wolves.

Like they're a group.

There can be a leader of a wolf who's like, I'm the coach of the wolves.

They probably don't say that.

They probably say like, ah-roo.

But they still like go with the other wolves.

It's a whole thing.

Sidebar, in Minnesota, there are wolf sanctuaries and you can see wolves do stuff and it's
amazing.

I just need to quickly acknowledge that.

It's really cool.

Do it if you get the chance.

But.

Hyperindependence is viewed as a strength because we've been coached to do it.

I'll let you guess why, but I'll, I'll hint at a couple of things.

One, it prevents people from having to feel their feelings.

They don't get, they don't have to be vulnerable.

So it's a little more of that.

And two, these people are easy to manipulate

because if you are

response to trauma?

I didn't say that, but I did heavily imply it, and now I'm saying it.

um But that's the other thing too, is like, if I have no Sam and Daniel, and I'm feeling
hurt by a thing, and I sit here and fester and brood about it, no one validates my

emotions, that signal doesn't go off, I begin to be impacted and compromised.

Like I am now a worse animal.

I am less good at my job, I am less effective, I take longer to heal.

This is just reducing your healing speed and effectiveness.

It is a failure.

And yet we praise it because it is not vulnerable because we're scared of vulnerability.

Part three, cultural communication styles.

I'm going to be quick on this part because there's too much to cover.

Uh, there's a phenomenon called machismo, um, which is all about like strength.

And there's like some specific cultures that have specific rules within it.

But occasionally you'll come across people who are doing vulnerable stuff and like, I
think I'll get poked.

And it's like, Oh, hang on.

My role here is to be like a provider or strong or like a gendered role thing.

I'm not going to get into those woods.

But there's not for lack of like comfort doing it, like, I don't want to spend 45 minutes
on that, but there's a, there's a level of like.

spend 45 minutes on it, go ahead and join our Patreon.

Let us know.

We'll be happy to join and talk for 45 minutes ad nauseam nonstop about that particular
topic.

Anyway.

the long and short of it, the long and short of it's funny.

If you know the next thing I'm gonna say, because the next thing is brevity, um we think
that it's manly to be brief, to be like, yes, are you good?

I'm fine.

Like all that kind of shit.

We think that that is strong because it's under Stoicism.

Stoicism, I'm actually not against.

The concept of what Stoicism is portrayed to be, I'm very against because it's suffering
in silence.

If you think it's good to suffer in silence, I would ask you simply why.

And I would offer you the reason that I think people want you to suffer in silence.

Because it makes you easy to manipulate.

Once again without a team to tell you, hey, I noticed you keep toiling in that field for
that overlord.

Is he paying you well?

No, we should overthrow him.

You just toil.

And then he goes, you're such a good little servant.

Thanks for working so hard.

Yes, your knees are falling apart and you're so tired and I haven't paid you very well,
but you're very brave and strong and I admire you.

And you go, ha I'm a good boy.

And then you fucking die.

So like, that's not stoicism.

Stoicism is fine, that's another topic for another day.

Last one is what I like to call the default fail safe for men.

This is especially true in America, though I suspect it's true elsewhere, which is when
you have the big feelings, you just get real small and quiet.

Because you can maintain the outlook of like, the presentation of like, I'm fine, I'm
strong, I'm okay, and everything goes in here.

And you get real small.

Perhaps you have seen, even in film, a couple.

interacting in one party just gets really quiet and sits there like, why aren't you
fucking saying anything?

A of all, there's some trauma response shit to this.

And B of all, it's because I, once again, I can't go to vulnerability.

So those are the big four pillars that block things and also contributes to loneliness in
men.

There's some, there's actually a couple more things, but thoughts on anything before I
ramble further, cause those are big.

I have quite a few thoughts.

You talked about men having the need for brevity, and I feel the need to give a shout out
to a very famous author, Dave Berry.

You ever hear of Dave Berry, John or Daniel?

Yeah, he's a fun little comedian guy, and I'm gonna read a passage from one of his books
called The Complete Guide to Guys to give another illustrative point about men's

programming, programming towards brevity.

The section is called

Guys are not great at communicating their intimate feelings, assuming they have any.

That's a joke.

He's a comedian, okay?

He says, is an aspect of guyhood that is very frustrating to women.

A guy will be reading the newspaper and the phone will ring.

He'll answer it.

He'll listen for 10 minutes, hang up and resume reading.

Finally, his wife will say, who was that?

And he'll say, Phil Wankerman's mom.

Phil is an old friend they haven't heard from in 17 years.

And the wife will say, well?

And the guy will say, what?

you

The wife will say, what did she say?

The guy will say, she said, Phil is fine.

Making it clear his tone of voice in chat, although he does not wish to be rude, he is
trying to read the newspaper and he happens to be right in the middle of an important

panel of Calvin and Hobbes.

But the wife ignoring this will say, that's all she said?

And she will just not let up.

She will continue to ask.

district attorney-style questions forcing the guy to recount the conversation until she's
satisfied that she has the entire story.

Which is that Phil has just got out of prison after serving a sentence for a murder.

He committed when he became a drug addict because of the guilt he felt when his wife died
in a freak submarine accident while Phil was having an affair with a nun, but now he's all

straightened out and he has a good job as a trapeze artist and is almost through with the
surgical part of his sex change and recently became happily engaged to marry a prominent

member of the Grateful Dead.

So in other words, he is fine, which is exactly what the guy told her in the first place.

But is that enough?

No, she wants to hear every single detail.

And the story goes on.

And I just think that's hilarious and funny.

Because unfortunately, guys think that's cool.

That's funny.

That's neat.

Like, you know, say as little as you possibly can.

And it is funny.

But the truth is, um it's not great.

Communication almost always solves all problems.

I was just telling my wife about this.

We watched the last season of this show called Bridgerton.

I'm not a Bridgerton fan, but we watched it.

And it's funny, because at the end of it, we're just like, know, all of this would have
been solved if they would just talk to each other, if they just communicated.

The entire subtext of the show is, will not say what we're actually feeling.

Makes for great drama does not make for great life-ing or relationships or anything of
that nature, which I'm sure John's gonna talk about the fact that we get, because we get

no training elsewhere.

Our only other source of information is pop culture, TV, movies, and that's not a great
model in any capacity whatsoever.

But yes, continue on, John.

Nailed it, very well said.

And I would validate, hey, well, that's a funny bit.

And there is, there are some like, and I do want to make sure I mention this, there are
some upsides to like the traditional male way of being one of the like, it's a stereotype,

but also it is true.

At least in my experience, I'll have like a friend, of my best friend in the land, his
name is Kevin.

He's a really good dude.

Met him when I was five, we've been boys ever since.

ever, like once in a while, we won't talk for like, I don't know, three or four months,
five months, six months, more maybe.

And he's like, hey man,

And I'm like, Hey, and then we're just right back where we were.

Like the upkeep on that relationship is zero and it will never like miss a dosage.

We were just like, I'm still invested.

care about you.

You can knock on that door anytime and I'll be there.

And the maintenance is very low and that's weird.

And it's a, it's a kind of a man thing.

Um, and not in a, like, women don't get it, but in a way of like, I don't know, it's an
upside to like the weird structure.

What I'm talking about is we can just be like, well, you're my friend though.

So I've established that.

So we can just resume that, which is nice.

Um, but.

we do this thing, not to cut you off, but like we do this thing where if I haven't seen
someone in like 10 years, I don't go, my gosh, tell me everything I've missed.

It's like, you will tell me exactly what you want me to know.

And that is totally fine.

I'm just happy we're in this space and we know that we're friends forever.

And then you will tell me what you want me to know, but if you don't want me to know, I'm
not gonna poke into it.

And that is a weird guy thing.

It is weird.

It is.

There's a meetup that a lot of my friends go to once a year and you will see people for
three days and you are thick as thieves and it's amazing and I'll go to it every year till

I'm dead.

And then I won't talk to half of those guys for like, I don't know, eight months more.

Like it doesn't, it just, but when I see them, I'm like, no, I'm just glad to be with you.

And it's very sincere.

So like, I'm not saying that the way that things is, is terrible, but the way that it is,
is limiting to a lot of things that can make it be terrible.

uh Sam gave me an incredible seg and as a fetishist,

damn, that was good.

uh Insofar as how there's a lack of education on handling things, I would talk about.

three things in ascending order of problems.

So the first one is it's both not okay and funny.

I used to work in a rehab program and there was a guy, he was one of my clients in a group
and I really liked this guy.

I really, really liked this guy.

He fancy himself a bit of a ladies man, which I would not confirm, but he thought he was.

And there was a colleague of mine,

he found to be very physically attractive.

And he...

I do think this was kind of cleverly done, but it sucked and you'll see what's happening.

If you don't, that's the point of the story.

um He goes up to her in the hallway.

He goes, hey, I haven't seen you in a while.

What's going on later?

And she goes, what do you mean?

He goes, like, don't we have an appointment sometime?

which is like a little bit like you're being a silly guy.

But also she was like, no.

And he was like, are you sure?

And like, he kind of leaned into it a little too far.

So she was like, this is not appropriate.

And he was like, what?

So then he comes and talks to me he's like, why did she get all mad?

And I was like, well, do you, and I tried to be very respectful.

I like, do you not know for real?

He was like, no, I don't fucking know.

And I talked to him about like boundaries and how to talk to people and like the
appropriate places that you can flirt with people and stuff.

And

I think he at first was like, John's just saying some shit.

But then he was, he was kind of like, Oh, fuck.

Like I didn't know.

And like, he's a good guy.

He didn't think he was playing a vicious card or trying to be shittier and bait in her
space.

He thought he was just like being passively flirty and shooting a shot.

because that's how we're taught.

We're taught, a little flirty, do that thing, it's fine, yeah.

And the second thing I would lead to is this norm has improved with time.

How many fucking friends do I have who are women who are approached by men in the
workplace, be they coworkers or whatever, who are just, they'll say things like, the one

that sounds innocent but is not is the smile more, which is just like, cause I should look
happy for you, uh which is its own gross thing or the like.

Are you seeing anybody?

Cause you need a boyfriend?

Like there's just this level of like it's well intended, but it's old timey sexist
bullshit.

And it is very hard to call this out because the person will get genuinely offended.

They'll be like, I'm just trying to talk to you.

I'm just trying to be kind.

Like they do not know.

And it's very frustrating because to tell this person that, especially if you're the woman
in question, you have to be like, I'm going to tell you you're doing something wrong.

I'm going to make you feel foolish.

I'm going to, and they're not trying to do that.

but this shit's been drilled in forever.

And then, please, always, always do feel free.

that's important to me.

There's a thing that men are taught as well to do a very grandiose, big, large gesture
during if you decide to propose to a woman.

And look, okay, if your lady friend is into that and she's excited for it, cool.

Most time though, it's a surprise.

Most time it's engineered in a specific way to be in a very specific fashion.

So it's massive and big.

And there's of course a court of public opinion all observing you as you do that thing.

I'm here to tell you though.

gentlemen who are maybe listening or watching, whether you know it or not, if you were
doing this, you are actually socially engineering the situation to ensure that this person

feels significant peer pressure, so that way they can't say no to you.

And that, whether you believe it or not, is actually a bit shitty, because they have two
options now.

They either agree and acquiesce to you and say yes, even if they don't truly feel like it
they're giving in to the pressure.

or they have the bravery to be honest with themselves and say no, makes everyone look
shitty, but it also makes them look really shitty because the expectation on women is that

they should just always say yes when those things happen.

So I'm really passionate about this thing.

You can do whatever you want.

If your partner have a dynamic, go for it, but second guess your inclination to always go
down that path.

You have it based on prior programming.

It's not necessarily healthy.

Question only works if there's an out for the other person if they want to go the other
way and that's the only way to really do that.

Continue John, sorry.

No, brilliant, say once again, I would offer a pro tip for this.

If you're ever going to get a pet, a proposal or a purchase that's significant amount of
money, know what they want before you ask.

Don't do surprises with this because Sam is exactly right.

It's an ambush.

If you are asking a person if they'll marry you and they, haven't figured this shit out
yet, it is not romantic.

And this isn't me shaming people if you've done that.

Like, I don't want you to feel bad because, we've been coached to do that.

uh But it, I don't know.

It has like a pop quiz element at best.

And also social pressure makes people do things.

And I can give you the science on this another time or this time, but like, if I think
everyone is doing this thing, or I think we're supposed to do this thing, I'm just going

to do it.

And then I'm going to undo it later.

This is, save yourself some time, make you and your person happier.

No ahead of time.

And I'll just add a little caveat from my own personal experience.

It feels really good though, to get that yes, knowing that person could have absolutely
said no.

It feels even better even.

So just FYI.

Yeah, yeah, no, there's, So um the third ramp up here isn't shitty thing at work.

These are all like under the head education of like how to communicate with people
specifically, RE relationships.

A friend of mine is on the internet and she's a, she cosplays and she does quite well.

And her page is publicly available and you can already see where this is going.

And there's this guy who saw it and was like, that's really good.

And then like a normal person, he commented on it and tried to talk with her.

Wait, that's not what happened at all.

He sifted through years of posts and wrote her a handwritten letter and found where she
worked, which wasn't posted anywhere online and showed up with it.

Now, if you heard that and went, what's wrong with that?

I want to be kind to you because you might not know.

That's a massive violation of privacy.

If people give you information, you're free to use that information.

If I give you my number, I'm cool with you texting me or calling me.

If you got it from somebody else, I do not want you to, I don't want that.

I don't want that.

And if you are a person who knows a bunch of shit about me and I don't know a of shit
about you, we don't have a relationship.

you have a fascination with me.

And the thing is like, this person I think, maybe a little shit going on there, but like,
I don't think that he thought he was being villainous.

I don't think he thought he was cornering her or being scary, but also like, he was.

So she, like a fucking cool badass, puts her phone down, hits record and is like, this is
not okay, you cannot do this, has the camera.

syncs it up with the footage from where she was working.

What a fucking badass, she's so cool.

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks.

Dude comes back with a basket full of gifts and flowers as an apology.

Bro doubled down.

He doubled down.

is no relationship here.

And this particular friend of mine is just a fucking badass and handled this very well.

And was like, this is inappropriate.

And he was like, well, you can keep the, she was like, I will not, I want nothing from
you.

And here's some stuff to think about, right?

So the camera at the place doesn't record sound.

And if she takes the thing from him and then he later violates a norm with her, there's
evidence that she accepted a thing.

And men, this is a thing that I don't think we think about because you don't, you just
never had reason to.

A lot of women are constantly afraid of men because it, it's not, you know, like just like
Johnny friendly boy, who's a pro.

It's like the scary one.

And this guy, think well-intentioned, creepy weirdo, but like, maybe he wasn't.

And we don't necessarily realize that we're talking to a person whose guard is like super
up because they've been also frankly, the other side of the coaching is they're afraid.

There was this thing a while ago.

And I'm sure many of you have heard of this, where women were saying, would they rather be
trapped alone with a bear or a man?

And bear won.

By a lot.

Which is fucking bad.

Because I don't know if you've seen a bear before, they'll fucking kill you.

And they're huge.

You can't talk to a bear.

But the idea was, you also can't talk to a man, and he probably has worse intentions.

So here's some stuff.

I don't think that's true about every man.

I'm a man.

I've never assaulted a person.

I intend to keep it the way I've for of my life.

It's going really great.

But a lot of these things come from a place of rejection, feeling bad about ourselves, and
the things I'm trying to get to and share about today is we get coached that like, be a

cool, strong, tough boy long enough, someone will gravitate to you, and until you get that
person, you can never be vulnerable.

What a fucking disaster!

That's so goddamn stupid, and I get a little defensive about it because I feel so bad for
men who don't have positive female relationships in their life because, sidebar, this is

how incels are formed.

They're just like, well, this is forbidden fruit and I can't have it they don't think I'm
good enough.

Sidebar, if you are somehow an incel who tripped and fell into this, first of all, thanks
for checking it out and giving it a shot and not just being angry.

There's actually a really quick recipe to help this out.

It's like, love yourself, work on yourself, become a person that you like.

I shit you not, it is that easy.

If you're a person that you like, another person will like you.

That's a fucking stone cold fact.

If you need a person to like you to like yourself, you are going the wrong direction with
this.

And I promise you, no matter how great that relationship with that person is, it's
unsustainable.

And if you don't like yourself and somehow acquire a mate who is attracted to you in spite
of that, I am not a doctor, I'm not anyone I can almost guarantee that person has the

thought of I can fix them.

And you don't want that even if you think you do, you don't want that.

No party wants that.

You don't want that.

Here's the thing.

Let me cut you off Sam, if you had more I wanted to.

If you do successfully fix that person, which you won't, but if you do, they are now
dependent on you for maintenance.

This is now no longer a relationship of two equals that love each other and build things
up.

This is my pet project, I have to keep it running.

And you know what pet projects don't like?

People getting frustrated with them and changing what they're doing.

If you are, hey, the side, I don't know.

Since we did last episode last week and this episode this week and they were different
weeks, I should remember when we talked about this.

ah

I'm gonna do it a different way, just skip the whole thing.

ah But there's this thing of like, learning to love yourself takes time.

Being cool with yourself takes time.

That's a little bit scary.

But I'm telling you, there is no better investment because people can sense it.

If you like yourself, people are like, that's where the confidence comes from.

And that's a really nice thing.

Because if you're like,

Yeah, I I like these things about myself.

I've built myself around these things.

This is my control room.

This is how I work.

This is my instrument.

And people are like, that instrument's fucking weird, but you play it so well.

They'll be drawn to that.

Whereas if you're like, I have made this hideous trumpet out of scrap metal because I was
informed to be like Trumpets.

Here's what it sounds like.

You're just like, no, no, that's upsetting.

Here's the thing, I've been on dates with a bunch of people, I've dated a lot of people
for serial long-term relationships, and the thing that feels the best is when you and

another person are both like, my God, I'm so glad I found you.

Like, wow, I'm so fucking lucky to be with you.

my God, I can't believe it.

And when someone says that and they feel that towards you, it's all worth it because they
like you for the person you actually are.

If you're like, I need to get more buff so people will like me, terrible news ahead, my
friend.

You should get more buff.

It's fun.

It's way, it becomes strong.

It's great.

You should do it.

But if you're doing it to get love, what you're doing is saying, I am inherently unworthy
of this.

Hopefully this masquerade will last long enough that a person can fall for it.

And if that person does fall for it, they like you for temporary reasons.

Please don't do this to yourself.

circa go back to our honeymoon episode to see more about that.

Exactly.

It's also one those as well that you...

I'm gonna get buff so people will like...

No, the people who like buff people will like you.

There are a lot of people who don't like buff people whatsoever.

And so if you're going to do something like that, do it for you.

Do it for no one else but yourself.

Do it because you want to get big and buff, not because you think it will attract people.

Just do that.

meta, meta, meta commentary, lot of bodybuilding is actually propagated by the fact that
men care more about the way they look than women do.

But anyway, but yes.

Yeah, that's really true.

the gym scenario of like, not that we really care, but like the bros will come up to you
and just be like, you look so good, dude.

Like you look so...

which we should talk about and celebrate real quick.

So I will tell you, in my life, there have been periods of strength where I have been
physically more built.

And the times that I have felt the best have no romantic aspects to them whatsoever.

I was working in my job and one of my clients in a group I was running went up to me and
said, damn, Merrick, been lifting, that sweater's gonna pop off.

And I could have screamed out of joy.

It felt so.

Good to be validated by somebody who knew what I was doing.

They knew the effort required to have the success that I've had.

And it just felt so nice.

And if you get into this for that reason and just like celebrating, this can actually be
like a really healthy man thing.

Like participating in communal, this is why sports are actually amazing because you like
get to be vulnerable in a specific context.

It's built into the thing.

Asterisk, it can be done super wrong, but there's a level of like handling a loss as a
team and enjoying a win as a team.

my God.

I'm a little biased, buy my shirt, you can tell.

But if you go to YouTube, which you may be on right now, and you type in Ben Johnson,
good, better, best, there's a thing when the Bears win a game where all the guys get

together and he has this little chant, it's very dorky.

But it makes you feel so happy to watch, because they're all just so happy for each other
and so warm and kind and excited.

And it's it's a really cool thing.

So sports can be an amazing part of this.

Once again, a lot of the shit that's part of manhood is awesome and fun.

I'm not trying to knock it.

Even the stereotypical ones, like firing a gun off drinking a beer wearing flannel,
incredible, would recommend, it's really fun.

Driving a big old truck feels really good.

But don't fall into the don't be vulnerable, don't fall into the I have to be alone, don't
fall into the sharing my shit is weak.

And also truly, and I know I can't just say this, will just do it, but if you build a
relationship with yourself where you're like, that's my boy, I like that guy, he's really

cool, people will feel it, I promise you.

I've done both.

I tried to be cool or tough or fucking whatever and shit and nobody gave a shit.

It stupid.

And then I like worked on myself and I'm happy and like suddenly people like me.

What a coincidence.

I'm telling you it works.

And once again, it's not as Sam often says, this isn't a one-stop shop.

Go do it.

great.

Now, like this is years of effort.

Like it takes a lot of time, but you can do it.

I know I did.

Okay.

I have, I have two things to say in transition to, but before I do, I want to show you one
of my boys, speaking of boys, if have thoughts.

as you speak about this, I just also want to create a little bit of validation for me and
my truth.

I remember the time in which I wouldn't have called myself an incel, but I was definitely
the guy chasing and lurking the women thinking that was what you had to do right.

And there's almost a direct correlation to the moment when I decided I made a rule for
myself that I'm not going to chase anyone anymore.

No more chasing.

Nothing.

I'm going to be me and we will see what happens.

uh That

has a direct correlation to my own overall happiness, my self-worth, um attracting the
right people, having the right connections and relationship, regardless if they're

romantic or not.

um Just overall, just good vibes all around.

um And I recommend that to a lot of people, because I think there's a propagating machine
of chase, chase, chase.

People are excited by it.

It's sexy, it's kind of addicting, it's arousing even.

But I'm telling you, I...

If you have good self-worth, there's no chase involved at all.

um Now it is fearful because then you have the fear of going, okay, well, what if I don't
find the right person, the right thing?

Well, that's another conversation about the whole chaos machine of life, my friend.

I wouldn't worry about that so much.

If you can focus on the things you can control, which is just you, you'll be a lot happier
and you'll be very, very surprised by the results.

Okay, so this is a really high concept thing.

If I lose anybody here, I'm sorry, and we can certainly answer questions.

I figured as much.

Well, we tried.

He's kind of the quitter.

Welcome back, good to see you.

There's this, this is a really high EQ concept, right?

So a lot of things people do, this is a men thing and this is a relationships thing.

Men thing first.

A lot of things people do or men do that are like stereotypy or tropey.

actually require incredibly high EQ.

I'll give you an example.

And this is one that I do all the time is like shit talk.

I am a shit talker.

I have some friends whom our relationship is based on just tearing each other down.

And if you're like, that sounds very unhealthy.

Let me tell you why it's not.

It's because both me and the people I participate with this in have high enough EQ to be
able to signal, I really care about you.

If this hurts your feelings, I don't want to do it anymore.

This is supposed to be playful.

It's based on an in-joke, which is that I actually love you and I respect you and I want
you to feel good about yourself.

Hence I have the leeway to do this.

And what happens is if you have an experience, I want you to know it.

Like this can make it really feel very good.

So there's a guy that I play video games with on the internet.

His name is Jason.

He has an internet name, but I feel like that's more vulnerable to say than his actual
name.

ah

Like when we are in voice together, especially with other people around, we just like are
like, oh, you're so fucking obvious.

What a stupid choice.

Like, why would you do that?

Like, that's so fucking dumb.

You're such a trash player.

But at the end of every set when we're playing, he's always like a game man.

I was like, good game, incredible stuff.

You're amazing.

Like I love that guy.

I'd go to bat for that guy without fail.

Jason, for all of his trying to hide it, has an incredibly high EQ.

And I try.

I do my best.

If you don't have this and you try to do shit talk with people,

One person at least will feel terrible and it will become actual anger and this is not fun
at all and it just boils over immediately But since we don't ever fucking talk about how

this works You don't know that it's happening and some people just walk around with the
concept that I shit talk because what you're supposed to do And I'm just mean to my

friends That sucks oh

I mean, we can talk about this at the of the time, but I mean, the healthy kind.

You have gotten a permission slip from the other person to allow you to do it, and they've
gotten it from you, and then you're good.

People do it before they get the permission slip.

And then they wonder, why are they acting so, why are they being so weird?

Why are they not vibing with what I'm giving?

Because you didn't get a permission slip from a man.

You didn't connect with them.

You didn't get that, like, yeah, this is okay, man.

You didn't get that.

it.

It was just a joke.

Why are you being so why are you taking it so serious?

It's not that deep man.

It's levels of relationship.

It's levels of relationship and trust.

I've been on the show with these guys for a while and I've known them for much longer.

And if either of them says something to me that I feel actually is hurtful, I feel
completely confident that I can be like, dude, that sucked.

Like what?

Ow.

and they'd be like, okay, I see.

Here's what I was going.

Like that conversation is available.

If I just met someone and I love, I love banter.

I love shit talk.

I'm a huge fan of it.

But if we just start, I'm like, so we're actually gonna fight then.

Like it's a different thing entirely.

And as I've mentioned before,

Actually, I didn't mention this.

We get taught that physical dominance is your value, which is fucking insane because it
was true in the caveman times.

Very useful in the caveman times to able to subdue a beast with a club.

At this point, I can subdue a beast with, you know, money or a gun, which we can all use
with relatively the same strength level.

It's just, it's a stupid way of doing things and it ties to might makes right.

And if might makes right, then power is what's most important.

And you do not want that system I'm telling you right now, because very powerful people
don't always have very kind hearts.

Putting that aside.

um You want to build things on trust.

And because of the rules I've mentioned today, it's really hard to get that trust without
the vulnerability.

So moving to the second half of our show real quick.

This is the part about bad relationships.

Maybe you're a young person, maybe you're not, who knows?

But it's your first big romance.

You're in love with somebody and it feels really good.

And I have such phenomenal news for you.

First of all, watch the honeymoon episode, because it really goes into depth on this, but
you're about to drown in oxytocin and you're not gonna care.

It feels so fucking good.

I'm so in love.

This person is so amazing.

I wanna spend every second with this person.

The sex is incredible.

You spending money like it's going out of style.

It's amazing.

You commit resources, time, maybe you propose, whatever else, right?

Please don't.

Surprise propose, please don't do that.

Sam made a really good point, please don't do that.

Any who's in, one of the problems is you can't really tell if your relationship is good
for a while because your brain is flooded with the effects of heroin.

You're high on love effectively and you're like, this is amazing.

And then there, you your partner might be like rude to you and you're like, oh, I didn't
like that.

God damn, it's oxytocin though, okay.

What I will tell you is if you think a person is really like your person, you can kind of
apply the same rule that a lot of people do for tattoos, which is like put it somewhere,

think about it.

If you still like it after a while, go for it.

The time you need for selecting a permanent partner should be longer than a tattoo.

It should be, tattoos are awesome, but you don't like have to live with the tattoo that's
mean to you.

You know what I mean?

Like that's not a thing.

And if you do, weird tattoo.

But.

um

It's just...

Yeah.

Why did you get me tattooed near your armpit?

It fucking stinks.

This is the worst.

So a couple of quick things I to talk about are you bad relationships?

How can you tell if relationship is bad?

Number one, good relationships require work, which is the thing I need to say before the
next thing, which is a bad relationship feels like a job.

Like if it's like you're checking in and you're like, okay, I got to do my fucking shift
because that's the beginning of resentment.

Give me a second to search up a thing really quick.

Cause I never say this right.

Here we go.

So in Therapy Town, there are the four horsemen of death for relationships.

It's criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

This one is contempt.

When you start to feel the other person sucks and you're just like, my God, I fucking hate
this person.

When you talk about the person, the old ball and chain, there's like a cute way to do it
and be like, well, the old ball and chain's dinner's tonight.

I don't advise this in general because I think doing things that put your partner down
even in jest.

It's just a real slippery fucking slope.

Some couples can do this and they're amazing.

I will say, I am team, never put your partner down, even in jest.

ah My wife and I follow that rule.

She hears all the time from her coworkers, other people, they all shit talk their husbands
all the time and she always feels incredibly uncomfortable by it.

And we just don't do that.

We just don't.

same thing of like what I said before of um about getting older and like keeping it
keeping on verbalizing just like oh I'm really getting up there now I'm so old if you say

something enough times you will start to believe it stop putting that negative talk out
into the world it's it might not feel like it's seeping into the realm of truth but it

will but it will

Please, please listen to Daniel on that, please, because you will start to weave a craft.

Also, if you're like shitting on yourself, you're like, I'm so ugly, and in hope that your
partner will stop that, two things.

One, they'll start to think you are, so don't.

And two, they will realize their validation isn't working and that they're being prompted
to correct you, and people hate that.

Especially if they have ADHD, by the way.

um So number one is contempt.

Like you don't want to start resenting your partner.

This is a massive, massive over like reduction with this, but the way to avoid this is
healthy communication and saying like, I feel an emotion about this thing that you're

fucking doing.

Don't even say fucking if you can help it.

But then that person can respond.

You can talk about it.

There's a heads up, not to brag.

I'm kind of okay.

Like I'm pretty good at this.

It's still incredibly fucking hard.

Like it's very tough to do this in a vulnerable, but assertive way.

And we can talk about that another time if you want to talk about that, criticism we kind
of touched on earlier.

If you're like ragging on your partner,

Once again, I'm kind of in the same club with Sam and I would just not even do it.

But if you do, the degree that I would do it as is like, man, you're always stealing coins
from me and Mario Party.

Like it's never like you have a flaw as a person and I don't like it.

It's like, like I said, the EQ for this and the nuance for this is such that it's just
kind of not worth fucking with.

I do know some couples who can do it and I love them and they're amazing.

I'm not, I've tried, it's not good.

My wife is actually pretty good.

I've seen her do it a couple times.

We'll be at like a group party or whatever.

And it'll be like, Sam always fucking wins Mario Kart.

Fuck that guy.

And we all laugh.

And that's it.

There's no stakes to it.

It's just a fun, stupid thing.

That kind of thing.

Right, no, and I evaluated a couple of things.

bad at it so I never even touch that but she's much better at it than

It's like a little bit different rules too than with like buddies.

So like um one of my friends who's a friend of my partner, she and I have a dynamic that
we're like fake enemies that we're always like doing pranks on each other and crap.

And it's like lighthearted and fun.

It does still always end with a like hug and like, care about you kind of a thing.

Or like, I guess I still like it.

You know, like there's just something like that.

This is different with partners.

It just psychologically happens differently because you spend way more time with them.

I'm gonna really quick touch on um stonewalling and defensiveness.

Defensiveness is a really hard one in that if you are my partner, dear listener, and you
come to me and you say, man, you're always late for everything.

like, well, I can't help it, you're always fucking coming up.

I've already fucked this.

And I understand why I did because I feel nervous, I feel attacked, I feel criticized.

And it's really easy to slip into this, especially if somebody teed you up.

Yeah.

partner was complaining about how late I was all the time and you bring it up, I'm already
at a fucking nine.

And it's, there's more about that, but I'm gonna go past it, because I still have a big
one I get through today.

Stonewalling, I'm gonna be the briefest on, but it's just locking it out.

And this is, I bring this one up specifically because it's important for men.

Men do this really bad.

We get taught as per our earlier conversation about stoicism and brevity, we're just like,
no, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.

Wanna know a terrible feeling?

Knowing somebody's upset and they won't acknowledge it.

Oh boy.

And it's terrible for everyone because now the person's like, no, but I know you're mad.

They're like, I'm not, I'm fine.

You know how this fight goes.

And if you don't, love that for you.

It's not great.

I don't love that for you.

You're gonna find out.

It's not fun.

Yeah, no, it's awful.

So, rattling off a few more things.

Here's why bad relationships are tricky to get out of.

Once you've noticed these things, you first off go, especially if you're a dude, this is
the only place I can be vulnerable.

I cannot lose this.

And you will stay in things that do not serve you.

As a person who's been a therapist before, who's helped people leave relationships, and
also just like a dude who's helped friends leave relationships, there is occasionally a

real fear of like, this person will hurt me.

Weird shout out, sometimes you'll be with a partner who had a previous partner that was
physically scary, and now you're in the aura, not the aura, the orbit of their reaction of

like, God, no, you're physically scary.

And that feels really bad, and it makes you feel defensive, and this whole thing goes up
in flames in like five seconds.

Once again, vulnerability is how you defuse this.

And can talk more about the communication there if you wish.

second one, pest over emphasis of the relationship is it's the devil you know.

Well, this person and me fight all the fucking time, but probably better than going back
on the dating apps again.

yeah.

That's a statistical fallacy.

This is also a thing too.

ADHD havers prefer to do the thing that we already know than look for another thing.

I've had so many fucking clients with ADHD who have a job they don't like and they stay at
it because they think they might find one that sucks more because their brain

pre-populates this and the sustained task of applying to jobs, which is worse than ever.

Like it just feels so bad.

The sunk cost fallacy, I've put so much into this relationship.

I can't pull out now.

You can, let me tell you as an owner of Kia Soul formerly, sell it.

Sell it earlier.

Please don't do what I'm doing.

It's a very bad plan.

Yeah, just, yeah, just like throw it away.

Do whatever you, anyway, like putting resources in it doesn't work anymore.

Oftentimes, no shot at anybody, right?

But like at some point you can make a fair judgment call and be like,

this isn't getting better per resources.

I'm just burning them.

I will withdraw.

That's way easier to do with a fucking car than it is with a pet than it is with a person.

Like that goes way up in intensity per rung of that ladder.

And then finally,

without you losing thought?

Can I pause you for a moment?

Okay.

Because you brought it up.

Again, I won't name names, but there's a famous YouTuber that has an entire career of
making fun of people's finances.

Uh, yeah, of course.

and I literally just came up on my timeline yesterday.

I watched it and I thought of you.

The person apparently was like enormously in debt and says, you know, what,

Checking it three months later, how have things changed?

Well, I decided to need that one car that I really liked that was really fancy.

I went ahead and bought a Kia Soul.

I'm like, oh no.

Oh no.

Why did you think that was?

But the financial advisor who's a guru on YouTube, that's the thing about YouTube.

You get to be your own king of your own castle.

goes, oh yeah, very good, very good smart decision.

Much cheaper car.

I'm like, no, it will literally cost you more in the long run.

Dear God.

It is wise to buy a cheaper car.

Please learn from me.

There are cars that are not worth buying.

The 2014 to 2015 model of the Kia Soul is so stealable, most insurance companies will not
insure it, specifically avoid that car.

No shot at Kia, they make some fine cars.

That model, all of the shots.

Do not do it, I know, ask me how.

okay.

Last point of the why it's hard to get out of bad relationship.

This is, I think, the most interesting one.

It's because you have a small sample size and you don't know what a bad relationship is.

And if you are in a different relationship every year for 40 years, your sample size is
still too small.

There are eight billion people on this planet.

There are eight billion people on this planet.

Your sample size is always going to be too small.

inevitably too small, it just is.

I am not like super proud of this, but like I'm a serial monogamist, not because I was
making the choice to be, but because I was a sad boy.

And I was like, I don't feel good about myself.

I need another relationship.

Spoiler alert, I got better by being single.

Whomp, whomp.

But I've had more dating relationships than most people you know.

I just have, I don't know how many, but I've been doing it since I was 17 and I'm 38.

There's an exception, once again, I got palveir.

But uh even with that, like,

you still are on a case by case basis.

This can never be a true study.

It's always gonna be a case study.

If you're a psych nerd, you maybe appreciated that.

I don't know, I did.

But there's this thing where like, you never have enough data to be like, oh, I've seen
this pattern before, I'll throw you out.

And also your brain is a little silly old brain and it will occasionally see patterns in
people who aren't doing it.

If you had a person cheat on you, which if you have, I'm sorry, I have, it sucks.

um And then you're like, well, what preceded that person cheating on me?

They were always going out every night, huh?

And then you have a new partner and that person goes out every night and you're like,
well, that seems awfully familiar.

But that person's going to their fucking bridge club where they have their grid
friendships and they feel great and it's an important part of their self care.

And you're like, I'm seeing problems though.

Like once again, the cure for this, and I...

It is this simple, it's fucking communication and vulnerability.

And it's not saying, prove to me you won't cheat, because that's literally just contempt
and defensiveness and criticism.

It's saying, I had a really tough thing happen once and I feel scared.

I just wanna let you know I'm trying to be vulnerable about this.

But what I'm telling you is, if this happens to you and you try to communicate vulnerably,
you are still on the fastest, healthiest path off the ride.

I promise you it's the best outcome.

And I'm sorry that it happens.

It's not your fault.

Also, John is fully aware that when the person is making the choice to cheat, it has very
little to do with the other person.

So if you are the person going with that, just so you know, it's not your fault.

Totally.

It's not about you.

It's about them.

Every single time.

Every single time.

it's really easy to internalize that.

There is a thing where people who are in really bad unhappy relationships eventually cheat
from a place of math because they're like, need to, my needs to get filled and they kind

of slip and fall into it.

And that's not me saying, so it's fine, but that's me saying, so like leave bad
relationships, which is kind of the point of what we're saying.

Okay, so some things to talk about about making a relationship feel good and how you can
stay in one.

It's actually very simple.

I'm going to pull this thing up.

We're not going to go through all of it because I personally feel like that would be, I
don't know, not a great use of our time.

Hello.

Can you see my fair fighting rules?

see it.

It's great.

These are things that

who can't see the screen, there's a list here of, I believe it's eight or is it 10 at the
bottom?

Nine, oh, nine.

And look, it's got an LLC at the bottom, which means it's limited liability company, which
means we can trust it.

I think we can trust.

guaranteed.

For the record, I use this handout often or other ones as just like a kind of a guide for
people.

is, I personally agree with it.

Listeners, fear not, I'm gonna go through the things.

We're not gonna go super in depth with them.

If you want this, type in verifying rules and you will find a PDF to your liking.

There's a thousand of them.

But these are some things to do.

And I'll tell you, I don't do couples work anymore because frankly, it's too hard.

I've done a lot of therapy.

Couples work is incredibly challenging.

It is.

you finish a therapy session with me, you'll go home and you'll feel great.

When you finish a couple of therapy sessions, you might be angry at me and your partner
and yourself and God and everything.

It is hard work.

It works though.

do have like if you're, it does work.

Anyway, I'm going to go through these things really quick.

Number one is super important, especially for dudes.

Ask yourself why you feel upset.

Because what's gonna happen, as we've covered before, anger is a secondary emotion.

It's literally never the primary emotion.

You actually feel sad or you actually feel afraid.

If you can get to that, it's going to help.

One example of this is like, uh the one they say is like, you're doing an uneven share of
the housework.

You're doing more housework.

Sure, at first piece you're mad, but if you follow that further, it's like, well, I
thought we had talked about this and I feel that down.

Or it's like, I don't have time for this all the time.

That's fear and sadness respectively.

Two, two is the hardest one for me.

It's discussed one topic at a time.

If we're mad about the dishes not being done and you're like, yeah, but when your fucking
sister was here, da da da da immediately like, I can't defend both angles at once.

I can't talk about both angles at once.

And as a person with ADHD, my brain wants to do this so very much.

It wants to bring up 55 things and talk about all of them at one time.

While your brain may be fast enough to do that, it is kind to yourself and your partner to
not.

Number three, maybe, maybe the most important one.

Focus on the problem, not the person.

There's a lot of built-in shit with this.

Like don't do name calling.

Also, if you did name calling, the conversation's over.

I'm sorry to be so blunt about that, but like you have violated the rules of this so hard
that you cannot come back from it.

I don't even care if it was like, look, you dummy.

Like, nope, nope, you made a personal attack.

You can't do this now.

You got to back out.

No name calling and this is not in your list, John, but I think you might agree.

Try not to ask the other person why questions.

Like why do you do this, right?

You can reframe it as a what question, but don't put the person on the defensive.

Yeah.

Why, brilliant point, why is it very backloaded question that you're immediately like
defend yourself?

Another one that's not on here that's really helpful is use we language.

So when you're doing the one problem, the focus on the problem of the person, you can say,
we seem to have kind of a breakdown when this topic comes up.

Is there something that we're doing that's bringing this out?

It's so much different than more than like every time this fucking comes up, you do this.

That second one is it's a gun.

Like it's so much scarier.

The fourth one.

People hate this.

say it with love.

know a lot of people I've done a lot of work with who just hate this.

It feels robotic.

We'll make it feel not that way.

using the I statements, I feel emotion when blank.

It sounds real foreign and therapisty till you get used to it.

But if I say, well, I feel sad when you say that.

It's that easy.

It's not that hard.

We can talk more about that once again later.

People do like to talk about this.

can get into it later.

Number five is also an ADHD one.

Take turns speaking.

You'll notice that the people on this show enjoy talking.

And we cut each other off all the time, but we also look at each other and go, uh, and we
kind of like pass it off because it's a sign of respect.

If you won't, if you talk over the other person, you're not respecting them.

And I bring that up, not in a way like you have to respect them.

What I'm telling you is mechanically this fight is pointless because you're not working
towards resolution.

You're trying to dominate them.

If you win a fight by dominating them, the person will resent you.

I fucking guarantee you that no one likes to be dominated parentheses and fetish
exception.

But in the context of healing a thing, no one wants you to be like the powerful one who
forces things.

And if they do, they're not going to, not for long.

Stonewall only covered moving on to yelling.

Yelling, it's so obvious, but also I want to make a special mention to it.

Like, I don't always know that I'm yelling because I'm an animated person.

But if I am, you are feeling bad about that, please let me know.

You know what I mean?

Like, and that's just true in general.

If someone's yelling and you say, fucking yelling, that's also not great.

But you can say, hey, I noticed that we're a little loud right now.

Saying I noticed in general, kind of a banger for this.

Number eight, I'm going to skip nine.

Nine is very obvious.

Be willing to compromise.

But number eight's really important to me.

So 8, ADHD, you can't be this fast.

Don't tell me.

I'm going to think of it.

Timeout, got it.

So timeouts is an incredibly high EQ thing, and I really want to talk about it because it
sounds really easy and it's super not.

The correct way to take a timeout if you feel too elevated to have the fight right then,
which is completely, totally fair and valid, is you say, hey, I'm too activated.

I can't do this right now.

I know this is important, and I know we need to talk about insert topic here.

Let's make a plan to follow up on this at this time.

How does that time work for you?

And then you find a time.

And if you don't follow up on this, you are fucking yourself.

Because the person the next time will hear, hey, can we take this and throw it away and
disregard your feelings?

And this is hard, once again, for the ADHD homies.

In my phone, I will put, remember to catch up with so and so about this thing.

Because like,

You just gotta do it.

It's such, it feels really good, by the way, when a person's like, remember that thing we
were talking about?

I wanted to follow up with you and make sure you feel okay about that.

That is a hugely healing gesture.

People feel very thought of and seen when you do that.

But I believe Sam had one for the other number I did not do.

It says compromise.

uh I want to talk about this because unfortunately, I say unfortunately because I hate
that we're in this state.

I use the word compromise and it has now become a politically heated phrase.

You say compromise and people go, I shouldn't have to compromise anything.

It's the other side, whatever.

So the principles will 100 % correct.

I would offer a reframe.

Don't think of it like compromise.

Think of it as going towards a win-win situation.

Both parties win something out of it.

Is it true you're going to lose something at...

At the expense, yes, but you're still gonna get a win and they're gonna get a win out of
it.

And that is super critical.

You cannot forego this path, this conversation thinking you're gonna win everything, not
gonna happen.

And you can't go down this path, this conversation and in kind of productive manner
thinking that they're gonna take everything away from you.

No, win-win.

Always go towards what's a win-win situation for us?

What would a success look for both of us?

That's my piece on that.

That's really well put.

I think a little pocket tip that I've given a lot of people and that I very much use
myself is if you're having a fight, you want to think about how we both win.

Like if you can phrase the language of like, want us both to feel better about this.

What's going on.

Like it will change the tone immediately.

And if it doesn't, that's actually really good information because it means your partner
is too activated to have this conversation right now.

One last thing on bad relationship, no relationship.

We kind of touched on this earlier.

I just like, I need to talk about it little tiny bit more, which is a lot of people don't
want to leave their bad relationship because they're like, I can't get another one.

I don't and I feel such a passion around this because I know so many people who've had
challenging things They've had anxiety they've had whatever they're having their first

major relationship and then they're like I've never had this before it's so incredibly
special I'm not here to knock how special it is I'm here to tell you there's a lot of

special things in the world and you are probably fucking horrible and I feel like you can
find another one and if you can't That comes with a giant big bold letters right now

underneath it, but I promise you right now is it forever

I also understand the concept of emotional reasoning and I've been in this position and
I've been like, it fucking feels like forever.

And if you have ADHD or depression, that's a really scary thought.

But also I promise you it's a thought.

It's just a thought.

Thoughts aren't real.

They're just data.

They're effectively AI generated garbage.

um To that end would kind of tie our ends together with our show here today, which is,
isn't it?

This is a good segue.

This is the full Ouroboros.

um This also gets easier as you get older.

Some people are like, man, I'm still dating in my 40s, my 50s, what am I doing?

Great news for you.

There are some significant upsides to this.

One thing is like, you know yourself better and all of the fucking like, gamery of this is
so much.

It's just non-existent.

Like you can just skip a of steps by just being yourself.

Um, and then also you would begin to have this data set.

When I had my first breakup, was like, what?

17, 16, I don't know.

I was fucking heartbroken.

But then I had a breakup, I don't know, like in my late twenties and I was like, well,
that sucks.

And I cried and I was sad.

I did some shit for a few months knowing full well, I would find another person.

If you don't know that, that's such a scarier problem.

If you lose a job and you're like, I'll never have a job again.

That's much scarier than like, okay, I'll go somewhere else.

And remember he said with great warmth and truth, humans are amazing.

We come back from everything.

We're the most resilient creature on the planet, except for squids.

Don't be with them at this.

They're way too good at it.

But like, you gotta let yourself heal.

You gotta work on yourself.

That's the worst case scenario.

That's the worst case scenario.

And I'll tell you one more bonus thing, which is.

If you take the time to help yourself be okay and ready for the next relationship, the
payoff is insanely good.

It's so good.

As opposed to getting into a relationship still covered in wounds from your last one and
being like, why is this so hard?

It's so hard because you're not ready yet, man or lady or non-binary homie.

And it's okay that it's hard and it's okay that it's scary.

this is like tying the men thing to it too, right?

If you go through a breakup, you don't need to go get sex.

Let me tell you, doesn't fucking work.

Clearly aware of that.

Have tried.

Because what you're not getting is like love.

What you're not getting is like safety.

What you're not getting is vulnerability.

What you're not getting is proof that someone cares about you.

Sex gives you little really fun doses of that and it feels great.

But it also, it doesn't like help your shit heal.

Remember, feelings, emotions are a thing that biomechanically heals.

When they get expressed, they go away.

That's how works.

Don't shortchange that.

If you're playing football, you break your arm and you go back in on the next play, you
are doing a massive disservice to yourself and your team.

It is sad.

It's sad you gotta go heal, but it's worth it.

You'll play better afterward.

That's all the things I have to say.

I'll say no more things now.

Perhaps my friends will.

Let's find out.

Out of respect for Daniel's schedule, I want to keep this part short, but you said
something that I think is really important I want to touch on.

How men speak about other women to other men.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I'm just gonna put my heart my sleeve on this this stuff gets me mad When someone talks to
me about their wife spouse or even just another person in our life who's a woman and

there's a tint There's a tinge of like they are lesser than men.

There's a tinge of you know, how women are there's a tinge of all this person's being Like
it's just there like and they are a good person.

They're good out, you know, they're they're an ally capital whatever but They have that
tinge to it and it drives me up a goddamn

Because A, they don't know it, but B, that is also doing significant harm.

And it's down that pathway of incelship and all the other stuff.

um I would say to anyone that has experienced that, if you're capable of even noticing it,
that's huge, awesome.

A lot of men don't even notice that crap.

um I'm curious, John, what would you say for men to kind of manage that piece?

Because it's everywhere and it's tough.

So this will hit home differently for some people, but a real great move in this is for me
is like, as you go to say that thing, your mom is watching, your sister is watching.

They're there in the room with you.

Do you want them to see you say this?

If you're like, yeah, no, it's true.

They occasionally do bite you during horror movies and it's hilarious.

Like, great, let her rip.

But if it's like, no, they would be really hurt by that.

And if you have like a fucked up relationship with your mom or your sister, don't do them.

Also, this is like a thing.

A lot of men do not have a positive relationship with a woman that they have not banged.

They have just like, they've had like a sexual, which also isn't necessarily a positive
relationship to begin with, and it becomes very objectifying.

The objectifying thing isn't me taking a moral high ground, even though could.

It's because it doesn't fucking work.

If you wanna have a sustainable thing, you can't have it with an object.

Me and my desk don't have a good relationship because he's a fucking desk.

Also, he's rude.

That's a me problem.

I just think if you are listening to this, you probably are more sensitive than the
average bear.

So you'd be able to hear that a bit more.

And I say there's a lot of power that can be had in challenging devaluing behavior saying,
Hey, I'm not comfortable with that guy or checking out this conversation.

That's not, I don't care if that's your, if that's someone we both mutually agree has
issues.

don't, I don't have that subtext, that color, that flavor.

And I would encourage men, if you notice this, it's not your job to necessarily inform the
other guy.

That's what's happening.

You do you.

But if you want, but if you have the spoons to spare and the person's willing and
receptive, maybe you can have that educational moment like John did with, with that one

individual before about, Hey, was that really that creepy?

had no idea.

I'm like, yeah, yeah.

Let me inform you how that might've come across that other individual.

Right.

This is huge because there's a lot of men out there who think they're allies and maybe
they are, but they still, the language is still not quite right.

Especially when they speak about women to other men, like, yo, what are you doing?

What are what are you doing?

Hold on.

I'm smiling because I have a secret move that I will share with you now, dear viewer slash
listener.

It doesn't always work, but it's kind of compassionate and I think it's very funny, which
is if you are around a person and they let one of those go and they're like, yeah, women

are always fucking doing this, you go.

I'm sorry, what was that?

And then they have a chance to go, oh, I don't wanna say that again because now, mm-hmm.

Yeah, some people be like, I said motherfucking, blah, blah, blah, you're like, no, maybe
not you.

But like, a lot of people, this is a way you can like gently draw attention to it.

And let me give you a bonus, bonus tip.

This is for the incredibly high EQ people.

This is also very hard.

It doesn't sound like it is, but it is.

You can't be smug about it.

If you're smug about it,

They're gonna view you as an enemy and invalidate your point.

They're gonna call you some fucking insult and file you as illegitimate.

You have to be genuinely curious.

Like, I'm sorry I missed that.

What was that?

And kindness heals.

So if you treat them like a person, they'll take it better.

Wait, treating people like people?

That's not our show.

Our show's about robots and AI.

What the fuck, man?

I mean, I don't even exist.

I'm a prompt, so I assume you knew that.

generated you in three seconds, thanks to Gemini.

Well, thanks for hanging out with us.

This topic is really important to me and I hope you can tell.

um There's two big outcomes I want before I am rude.

I already was rude to Daniel, sorry Daniel.

And I wanna hear what you're saying.

True.

um The big outcomes that I want is as follows.

One, I want men to have access to the full spectrum of emotions and get to share shit with
each other because like shit's fucking cool.

I recommend it.

I talk to these dudes every single week.

It's a fucking treat.

You deserve that.

You deserve that if you're man.

We have been told that it's weak and bad and other dumb shit.

Don't let rules written by a person that wasn't you, that's not how we're doing this.

Thing number two is I want to help people feel like you can always find a relationship and
if you can't, it's a gentle, loving call to actually attend to your own shit.

Nobody is so bad they can't find somebody.

Nobody is so bad they have to be alone.

You just have to take care of yourself first.

And also,

It's gonna be its own fucking show, like, nobody is so good that everybody has to want to
be with you.

If I'm in the best shape and I'm the hottest person and I make the most money and I'm
amazing at sex and I have the coolest, cutest dog and I have an interest in the same

interest as you and you just don't like me, that's okay.

And it would be foolish of me to be like, I'm gonna be even more the things you like to
get, no, it's not about that.

It's not about that.

Mm.

I'm getting some.

been our show, the Zero Dot Podcast.

Once again, it's been another week, but it's been a week with you and we appreciate it.

My name's Sam, this has been John, this is Daniel.

You can find us on thezero.podcast.com.

You can find us wherever podcasts are aired.

If you had a question for us, you we'd love to hear what your question is and we'd air it
on here on the show and talk about it a little bit, pontificate about it if you will.

Just go ahead and check us out thezero.podcast.com, submit your question there, or you can
be part of our really cool super secret club, zero.patreon members and...

You have extra access, priority access to our questions and us and just being cool and we
really like it.

And it's only $3.99.

If you want to give more, you can.

If not, no worries.

Until next time, cheers.